A MIDDLETON man jailed for six years in Dubai in hellish conditions has been told he must spend another six months behind bars.

A MIDDLETON man jailed for six years in Dubai in hellish conditions has been told he must spend another six months behind bars.

When millionaire businessman George Atkinson was imprisoned without charge in 1997 his family told the Guardian he had done nothing wrong and have been fighting for his release ever since.

He was later sentenced to six years and fined more than £1 million for allegedly paying illegal commissions and defrauding the Government in connection with a golf course he was developing in the Middle East.

At the time his family told the Guardian he had done nothing wrong and claimed he had been targeted with false charges by the Dubai government because he was pursuing a £4 million breach of contract and conspiracy claim against the Dubai government and the Professional Golfers Association in the High Court in London.

This week Mr Atkinson completed his six-year sentence, but his lawyers were told he must serve a further six months because he had not paid £1M fine. From prison Mr Atkinson spoke of his desperate disappointment and the heartache he suffers because he cannot be with his family.

During the time at the Dubai jail he has spent all but six months sharing cells with drug users after he was put into the wrong prison wing. Riot police also beat him when disorder - in which he was not involved - broke out in the jail.

In a call home he said: "At the moment I am in a cell with two sets of bunk beds separated by 60 or 70 centimetres. There is a mattress on the floor, in the middle for someone else, to sleep on. I read about overcrowding in prisons in England, but it is very bad here. There are 10 showers and 10 toilets, not all of which are working, to serve about 246 men.

"I cope by keeping up with my routine; I get up at 6am and spend as much time outside exercising as I can, that helps. I have served exactly six years in jail. I should have been freed months ago according to the United Nations, but the authorities here have told my lawyers I will have to stay in prison until September because I have not paid my fine. I have done nothing wrong but I didn't stand a chance from the start."

Mr Atkinson specialised in the construction of top class golf courses and was responsible for creating the first one in the Arabian desert in the mid 1980s.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office said its staff at the embassy in Dubai provided Mr Atkinson with all the help they could, but they could not interfere with another country's judicial process.